


The Adventure of Ravenclaw's Diadem

by Katzensprung



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1950s, Action/Adventure, After Hogwarts, Auror Harry Potter, Caper Fic, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Female Harry Potter, Female Tom Riddle, Female Voldemort (Harry Potter), Harry Potter is a Mess, Heist, Horcrux Creation, Horcruxes, Not Epilogue Compliant, Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem, Time Travel, Time Travelling Lesbians, World Travel, albania, criminal Tom riddle, screwball comedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-19 02:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29992752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katzensprung/pseuds/Katzensprung
Summary: After a freak time accident, Harry finds herself stranded in 1952 Albania while a young Voldemort is still searching for Ravenclaw's Diadem. How hard can it be to find one tree in a forest? Harry would probably find it to be a lot easier if Voldemort could stop almost getting herself killed already and possibly destroying the timeline.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 38
Kudos: 85





	1. Chapter 1

Harry didn’t even know why she bothered taking vacation days. Five years as an auror and she could count on her hand the times it had resulted in her laying out on a beach.

This was supposed to be her, Hermione, and Luna's annual special weekend together. They would lounge all day on a very sunny beach somewhere in the Mediterranean while wearing giant sunglasses and drinking from fancy glasses with paper umbrellas. Hermione would explain the latest reform legislation she was working on, Luna would tell all about her recent magizoology adventures this time in the Amazon Rainforest, and...Harry would embarrass herself spectacularly at flirting with women in bars. She was 23, dammit, and deserved to live a little! It was going to be great.

“We wouldn’t call you in, but you’re the one with the most experience about Voldemort. You know her magic better than anyone living,” Kingsley had explained only slightly apologetically.

The Albanian authorities had discovered a cache of dark items hidden in an underground vault. They didn’t want to deal with the mess of very nasty looking curses and traps visible just inside the wards and so they had called in the British to defuse and catalog the finds. “She was your Dark Lord. That makes it your problem,” their minister had said.

It had been nearly twelve hours since her ruined vacation, but the first layer (“of many,” Harry wanted to groan, “how paranoid can a dark lord get?”) of wards was almost unraveled.

Her three team members were each stationed in the other cardinal directions, tensely plucking and pulling at each strand in the weave.

Just one more string of magic to go. Harry had almost missed it. A single thin, knotted-up thread amidst all the brightly blazing curses that liquefied your organs from inside, erased your last year of memories, or, in one memorable case, caused all the hairs ("Even the ear hairs! How was this a spell? What was wrong with people?!") on your body to transform into venomous snakes. Harry wasn’t sure exactly what this strand did, but she knew it could be nothing good.

“That’s it! The first layer’s done!” cried Auror Jones with a whoop.

Harry started, her concentration broken. The tip of her wand slipped slightly, twisting the tangle out of shape.

And everything exploded.

* * *

The flash was blinding and Harry gripped her wand tightly as she spun around, trying to orient herself.

“People should scream less,” she thought blearily. Someone, maybe a lot of someones, seemed to be doing an awful lot of it. Her head hurt. Everything hurt. Did she have a concussion?

She felt her head and her hand came back bloodied.

Where was she? It was daylight now and hundreds of people in stadium stands were in a panicked frenzy around her. They were dressed strangely, muggle but oddly old fashioned. Was this some sort of massive costume party at a...soccer match? A very official looking man near her was blowing on a whistle and staring at her wide-eyed.

She had just enough presence of mind to cast a tempus before more cracks could be heard, surrounding her, and a stunner hit her from the side.

_11:02am, Saturday, May 24th, 1952_

This was going to be a problem.

* * *

Harry woke up groggily and in what appeared to be some sort of cell. It wasn’t the worst cell Harry had been in, she could give it that.

For someone on the right side of the law, her life and job included a surprisingly lot of being held prisoner in various locales. Lately they consisted less of notable places like Malfoy Manor and more the abandoned warehouse type or the more scenic (yet much more damp, it’s always a trade-off) smugglers’ hideouts along the coast.

One could almost call this one snug. Downright cozy. It was small and bare besides the bed she sat on, but that was only moderately lumpy and it even had a homey little quilt.

The walls to her left and behind her were thick gray stone and the other two walls were made up of iron bars. She couldn’t see far beyond them. There was a manacle on her wrist, connecting to a thick chain winding through a gap in the bars of the cell next door.

There were bandages around her head and middle. What thoughtful captors, Harry mused. Her t-shirt was in shreds and her jeans looked a bit…singed? That was concerning, but could be ignored for now. She was undoubtedly a bit worse for wear, but nothing seemed to be broken or hurt too much anymore.

A quick search showed that her wand was nowhere to be found, however.

Harry tugged hard on the chain and heard a groan coming from the other end.

“Ndalu!” called out a voice, sounding sleepy and deeply irritated.

“Err, sorry? English?” Harry called back. How long had she been here? The translation spell must have worn off.

She heard rustling as a person came into view. She looked a little older than Harry, maybe her late 20s. Harry could just make out shoulder length black hair falling around a dark colored wool sweater. The shadow of one of the bars bisected the woman’s face along a regal looking nose. Hard blue eyes stared back at her.

“Are you English?” Eyes narrowed at her. “I don’t recognize you.”

“You can’t know everyone,” Harry replied quickly. Her mind scrambled to come up with a plan. It was 1952 and no one knew her or where she was. She didn’t even know where she was. Would everyone in her time think she died in the explosion?

The woman hummed. “And what are you in for?”

“There was an accident and I may have apparated into the middle of a muggle soccer match. I caused a bit of a riot.”

The woman gave a long, lingering sweep over Harry’s rumpled clothes, causing Harry to redden.

“Oh, I bet you did.”

Harry was a trained auror. Nothing was supposed to frazzle her! Especially not (fellow?) criminals. Even very pretty ones.

“So…um. What about you?”

“A local viscount had too much money. And I had none. It would have been a pity to leave it that way. I didn’t expect he would be smart enough to have a silent alarm around his purse. He didn’t look like type.” The woman gave a small shrug.

“What’s your name, gorgeous?” she asked.

“Harry P-Evans. I’m Harry Evans.”

“Are you sure about that? You don’t sound so sure.”

“Definitely! I know my own name,” Harry scoffed. Well, it was almost her name. She couldn't just show up as a Potter before she was even born. Someone would notice and maybe remember. Think to themselves one day in the future, "Hmm. This Harry Potter woman reminds me of that one I met in Albania in 1952. How strange!" and then Harry didn't know what exactly would happen, but it would be bad. The less evidence of her presence in this timeline, the better. She just needed to lay low until she could find herself a way back. Something about that voice seemed familiar though, but she couldn’t place it. It was bugging her. But who could she possibly know in this time? Was it a classmate’s grandparent and they just sounded similar?

The woman made an amused murmur, but then added with a sigh when nothing else seemed forthcoming, “Well, Ms. Definitely Harry Evans, it’s been a pleasure, but this evening is getting dull. What do you say about a jail break?”

“That sounds lovely. Let’s just have a nice stroll around boulevards. But aren’t you forgetting that they took our wands? And we’re chained together?”

“Yes, that was rather rude of them. When they brought me in, I saw them put mine in the guards’ desk in the main room. I assume they did the same to your’s.

You know, I thought that I was going to have to spend the night here before you showed up. Some other poor sap before us has done most of the work and the three bars closest to the door are loose. The big problem will be to get that main door open.”

“And how are we going to do that?” Harry asked.

The woman gave her an irritated look at the interruption, but she continued on.

“Now, when I say ‘pull’ you better pull with all of your dainty little might. It’ll be a close thing, but together we should be able to break the last bars enough to cause one of those big lumbering boulders they call guards to come check on us. Then we strike.”

The woman stepped closer, her face right against the bars, and finally into the light.

It had been nearly eight years, but Tamsin Riddle was every bit as gorgeous as Harry remembered from Dumbledore’s pensieve.

Harry always did have the worst luck sometimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Ndalu!" means "Stop!" in Albanian


	2. Chapter 2

Don’t panic. Don’t panic. She’s just...chained to her worst enemy while stuck 51 years in the past. This sort of thing must happen to people all the time. In fact, it’s probably so common that people never even bother to mention it to anyone afterward. Like putting your socks on in the morning or stopping to get more milk on the way home. Everyday, forgettable things. Harry was going to stick with that. Nothing strange to see here at all.

She was just a normal prisoner having a conversation and breaking out of jail with someone she absolutely does not already know and has never even heard of before today. Then they would go their separate ways after, never (on her end anyway) to meet again.

But it had been Voldemort’s spell that landed her here, hadn’t it? Could she reverse it? Would she, if given the right incentive?

What was she even doing here? Was she after the diadem? Had she found it already?

And the great Lord Voldemort...failed petty thief. Would wonders never cease? Ron was going to love this. If things weren't such a mess, Harry could cackle. No wonder no one ever knew what she had gotten up to in Albania. How long would Riddle have been stuck here if Harry hadn’t stumbled along?

“Well? Are you in?” Riddle demanded. Harry snapped back to reality. She could continue panicking after this mess was over.

“I’m not dainty! But alright, I’m in. Let me just try something first.”

Harry got up and ran her fingers along the bars, testing each until she felt one twist and start to bend slightly. She waved her hand and sent a wandless _Diffindo_ to the weakest looking part.

The bar didn’t even quiver.

“ _Diffindo_ ” she whispered again a little louder, not wanting to bring in the guards yet.

Nothing happened. This was getting embarrassing. She was completely failing at magic in front of Voldemort of all people. Sure, Harry wasn’t some amazing expert at wandless magic, but in a pinch and need something basic like an _Accio_ or a _Diffindo_ or a _Muffliato_? Bob’s your uncle and she’s your girl. Was she still too magically exhausted from the explosion? She felt fine enough.

“It’s the chain. It’s slowly sapping our magical cores. Give it a few years and we’d be no betters than muggles,” Riddle said, the last word a sneer.

Harry shuddered. These devices were highly illegal in her Britain, but she had heard about the effects. The drain was steady but temporary at first. Anything longer though would become permanent.

And they use them here on people before they were even sentenced?

Harry had broken the International Statute of Secrecy fairly dramatically and caused hundreds of people to have to be obliviated, but Riddle was just a common thief for all that the authorities knew.

“Better than Azkaban,” she said at last.

“Is it?” Riddle asked, her head tilted in curiosity.

No, it wouldn’t be to Riddle. She’d probably rather have a whole herd of dementers round for tea than spend an hour without magic.

“So are we doing this or not?” Harry returned instead.

Riddle nodded, her face oddly thoughtful but she said nothing more on the subject. She motioned for Harry to grab her end of the chain taut and did the same.

“PULL!”

The racket was tremendous. As they pulled the chain tighter and tighter, the bars toppled out like dominoes.

There was a muffled shout and the sounds of running footsteps. A jingle of keys clattered against the handle as someone rushed to open the door.

A burly wizard in a navy robe looked at them in shock, hesitating for only a moment before raising up his wand and sending a bolt of yellow light towards Riddle. Harry yanked the chain hard, knocking her to side and out of the way. The spell bounced off the chain before hitting the wall behind them. But they were on him before he could do anything else, knocking him out cold.

The length of chain between Harry and Riddle was slowly shrinking now. The eight feet was down to around seven. If it kept up, they would soon be stuck holding hands and that was not a possibility Harry was on board with.

Riddle had grabbed the guard’s wand and was pulling Harry along, heading down the short corridor and towards a lighted room at the other end. Riddle waved the stolen wand towards the ceiling and there was another crash as the plaster behind them caved in, blocking the guard’s path once he woke up.

The guard room was small but practical and casually messy in a way that spoke of long hours. Papers were stacked everywhere haphazardly. A coffee mug lay cracked on the floor in the middle of a growing puddle. A pot of stew was bubbling in the fireplace.

“You go for the wands. I’ll search for the handcuff keys,” Harry said, looking at the several desks crammed along the walls. The chain was still shrinking between them, down to maybe five feet now.

A loud pounding on the opposite door made them jump.

“Cevdet? Hape deren!” A voice on the other side yelled.

“Help me with this!” Harry said, pushing the closest desk in front of the door. The desk wouldn’t give them long, but maybe enough time to find their wands and the key. If they were anything like the ones back home, the barrier spells in the guard room were mainly meant to keep people out rather than keep them in. Wizards never thought of practical things like escape.

Riddle was still searching, yanking Harry from her own search whenever the distance was too great.

The knocks got louder, quickly turning into bangs as whoever was on the other side tried to force it open. The door was buckling, the desk making loud scraping sounds as it was pushed further and further away.

“Found them!” Riddle yelled. Harry meanwhile was having no luck at all. Had the guard been wearing it? How could they not think to search him when they had the chance? They couldn’t even retreat now with the hallway ceiling all caved in.

“We have to go now,” Riddle said.

“How?! There’s not even a window. Can you even apparate like this with your magic being leeched? We'll be splinched for sure.”

“It’s that or back to a cell and that’s not where I’m going. Until we get this fixed, where I go, you go. Now shut the hell up already and hold on,” Riddle said as she grabbed Harry’s arm.

The door finally gave way with a loud crash and several angry shouts, but they managed to apparate out before anyone could grab them.

* * *

Harry had barely steadied herself when a familiar pale wand was at her throat.

“Now, Harry Evans or whatever you want to call yourself, you are all kinds of wrong and you are going to tell me why.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Cevdet? Hape deren!" = "Cevdet (name)? Open the door!"


	3. Chapter 3

Never go with a known murderer to a second location. Harry was pretty sure that was one of Hermione’s rules. Or maybe Ron’s. It was surely someone’s and it would assuredly be one of Harry’s from now on. Her favorite one. Maybe Luna would even embroider it on some brightly colored throw pillows for her so that Harry would never forget it again.

“Did they send you here? Are you after me? How did you even find me?” Riddle demanded.

What?

After Riddle? They? What was she on about?

 _Oh_. It was May 1952. Riddle had stolen the cup and the locket, murdered Hepzibah Smith, framed poor Hokey, and immediately fled England only two months ago! She would completely get away with everything, but she didn’t know that right now.

“Should some be after you?” Harry asked.

Harry honestly didn’t understand the ins and outs of time travel. Was the future changeable? Or was everything already set and any actions Harry took in the past had always happened? Were meant to happen even, like with the time turner? Had her arriving here caused things to split into a parallel timeline so that the future here was never going to be her future?

Even if the future was changeable, should Harry change it? Was it morally right for a single person to make that choice on behalf of everyone in the future? People -important, _beloved_ people- had died. But many more had survived. They’d gotten married, had children, moved on, made art and new laws and wrote books and did so many wonderful things. The trauma of war was still there and it would be for a long time, but it was slowly fading as society rebuilt. Big changes could cause people to be unborn, events rewritten, and millions of lives changed in ways both monumental and incremental.

She couldn’t fully kill Voldemort anyway without knowing where the existing horcruxes were hidden in this time. Harry assumed Riddle used Smith’s death for the cup, but was the locket even a horcrux yet? Maybe Harry could delay the whole murder spree thing by a few decades by forcing her to be a wraith earlier. Would that change make things worse long term though and make it so that no one defeats her in the future?

And if Harry made big changes here, did that mean there wouldn’t be a future Harry with the motivation to even make those changes when she went back to the past in the first place?

Voldemort had never mentioned having any daring Albanian jailbreaks together, but it had been over 50 years by then. Maybe amidst all the murder and government overthrow she had just forgotten one weird night spent with someone who looked a lot like an older Harry Potter?

Harry had once read that the prison of time was spherical and without end. And boy, did she know it now.

The whole thing gave her a headache. The intricacy of time travel was really more a Hermione thing. She would have been great at this.

“Don’t play coy with me,” Riddle said, breaking Harry out of her head. Right. There was a crisis happening right now that Harry could thankfully pay attention to instead. And oh, if looks could kill.

There was a comforting familiarity at being up against Riddle’s wand. Everything else was a mess that she didn’t know how to fix, but this was a threat she had years of experience with.

They were finally face-to-face. The wand pressed further into her neck and Riddle’s hand gripped painfully tight on her arm. Riddle used her extra inches to tower over Harry in an attempt to intimidate. They both were looking increasingly worse for wear, but somehow Riddle was managing to seem intentionally disarrayed rather than the “How are you not in the hospital?” look that Harry was pretty sure she was wearing at this point. Hair mussed and curls falling forward as she leaned towards Harry, sweater torn at the sleeve and falling slightly to one shoulder, pink lips curled into a vicious frown. Harry absolutely hated her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you don’t. Another Englishwoman happens to show up in the very cell next to mine. One who is a master occlumens unlike any I’ve ever felt. You haven’t asked my name, but look at me like you already know who I am. We should have been in Hogwarts together, but I don’t remember you at all.”

“I was in Hufflepuff,” Harry lied.

“That I can believe,” Riddle said with a roll of her eyes.

Rude. There was nothing wrong with Hufflepuff! Zacharias Smith was a prat, but Cedric had been brave to the very end. Tonks had been completely brilliant. Susan Bones is apparently a terrifying menace as a solicitor now and Harry had once heard that she made Malfoy nearly cry during a suit…

But probably much more important to the situation at hand, master occlumens? What the hell? Harry couldn’t hide her thoughts from an ostrich with its head already stuck in the ground. This had to be a weird time travel side effect and that meant Harry was going to promptly and enthusiastically ignore it for later.

“Even if I wasn’t who I said I was, you’re not going to kill me while we’re still chained together,” Harry reasoned.

It was a bluff. Her Voldemort was undeniably a kill first, ask questions later sort. But a relatively sane, nose-possessing Riddle probably wouldn’t want to drag a dead body all over Albania if only for the smell. Though maybe Riddle could cut off just Harry’s arm afterward and stuff it in a handbag? That was more portable and less attention grabbing. Well, she wasn’t about to give Riddle the chance to have that particular fashion dilemma.

“There are other spells I could use,” Riddle’s voice dropped to a whisper. Did they really need to be standing quite so close for this threatening? They had at least four feet of chain still!

“You could.”

Riddle still had Harry’s wand. And with the chain’s magic eating at her own, Harry wasn’t certain how well she could cast right now even if she did have it. Did Riddle still have enough power currently to cast _crucio_ after apparating them both? Probably, if only from sheer intent alone if that glare was anything to go by. Harry really did not want to find out.

So she did the only the only sensible (“Sensible!” Hermione would be shrieking something fierce right now and her hair would be getting all frizzy in that way that meant trouble and Merlin how was Harry ever going to get out of this dumb year and back to everyone?) thing she could think of.

She socked her.

Witches and wizards never expect the muggle approach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is Harry *maybe* unfairly taking a good decade and a half of frustration out on someone who (from their perspective) she just met a little over an hour ago? Yes. Does she even slightly care right now? No.
> 
> Kind of a slow chapter of very intensely standing next to each other for like 15 minutes, but Harry’s had a very long day and the consequences of everything are finally catching up to her. Plus we had so much pesky context and time travel angst to get out of the way.


	4. Chapter 4

The room was a wreck by the time they were done brawling. A small wooden table was overturned and some broken crockery littered the floor, joining the remains of its long smashed brethren. It had been a kitchen and sitting area, once, but that looked like a long time ago.

Moonlight streamed through broken windows, throwing everything not in its path into deep shadows. The darkness made the room feel even more lonely and abandoned.

The bandages on Harry’s head had been torn off at some point and hung around her shoulders like a ghastly scarf. Nothing felt broken, bruised certainly, but she had her wand back and that was all that mattered.

Riddle shoved herself up to a sitting position, resting her back against the peeling whitewashed wall, not far from Harry.

“What is wrong with you--you feral gremlin!” Riddle hissed, cradling her nose. Blood dripped between her fingers.

“You were threatening me!”

“I threaten people all the time! No one punches me over it. They quake like civilized people,” Riddle said all huff and indignancy.

“Maybe they should have,” Harry muttered.

She shot a quick _episkey_ to Riddle’s nose, the unexpected gesture startling the woman. The spell mostly worked. Bone and cartilage straightened themselves out beneath Riddle’s fingers, but the start of a bruise was forming.

Harry grimaced as she looked around. Their fight had disrupted the layer of grime that settled over everything, covering both women in dust and dirt.

“Where even are we?”

“An abandoned cabin that I found a few weeks ago. I couldn’t exactly take us to anywhere known,” Riddle said.

“It was good thinking. Let’s finish the interrogation tomorrow though? It’s been a long day.”

Riddle just groaned.

* * *

An elbow jabbed repeatedly into her side. It was still dark inside the cabin, but dawn was trying to force its way through the gloom.

“Whmph?” Harry murmured.

“If you keep moving and waking me up, I will strangle you with this chain.”

“Mrrph,” Harry replied and turned her head away.

* * *

The morning was spent mostly in silence, working to repair the cabin to a more habitable state by a mix of magic and muggle means. They were both too exhausted to even bicker, much less battle.

Cabin seemed a bit generous description in the daylight. More of a hovel, really.

A half-busted door led to the remains of a bedroom. Some vines were sneaking through a crack in the floorboards, wrapping themselves around the frame of a brass bed. The witches sent dozens of cleaning spells at the straw-filled mattress, nearly exhausting themselves. They both were still a little wary about the idea of sleeping on it. Some things were beyond magic. It would be better than another night on the floor though.

The table was hauled back on its feet and most of the offending dirt vanished. Two chairs were cobbled together out of the remains of several. The broken windows they managed to repair by magic or boarded up by hand for the ones completely missing. Clearing the fireplace of a decade of detritus and bird nests took the most time. Harry had emerged covered in soot and twigs. The sight of it caused what Harry imagined to be a genuine smile from Riddle.

Sometime during the night the chain had stopped shrinking, staying around four feet. It was still far too short for Harry's liking, but better than the alternative. They tried various cutting and unlocking spells against it throughout the day. The unlocking spells bounced off harmlessly enough, but the cutting spells proved less predictable. They both agreed to give up for now after re-destroying a window and nearly giving Riddle a very unfortunate haircut.

By early afternoon, they had the start of a nice little criminal hideout.

Riddle brought out a dollhouse sized trunk from her pocket and tapped it with her wand, looking on in satisfaction as it returned to normal size with a whoosh.

Harry peered over her shoulder as she rummaged through it. Lots of worn looking books, some clothes neatly stacked on one side, various household odds and ends, and a small group of what looked like tinned food and tea boxes. She had to admire Riddle for her practically. She had even packed a kettle. No ancient golden cups or priceless family heirlooms, unfortunately. On the bright side, no fancy looking headgear either.

“Do you have anything useful on you?” Riddle asked.

“Some sickles, a few dozen galleons, I think” Harry answered. Everything else was in her future hotel. Harry mourned quietly for its soft looking bed and the giant bath that she never got to use.

“A few dozen galleons?” Riddle asked. Her eyebrows rose and she sent an appraising look over Harry. Oh, was that a lot in this time period? “That’ll stock us up for quite a good while then. We’ll have to find a way to anonymously exchange them first though.”

“I’ve also got a pack of gum, a muggle pen, half a pack of chocolate biscuits, a necklace, and a comb. Biscuits looking a bit crushed, sorry,” Harry added as she dug through each of her extended pockets and started piling things out on the table.

“A comb? What on Earth for? Your hair has obviously never met one,” Riddle said as she eyed Harry's short, wild curls.

“Yeah, yeah. Very funny. Never heard that one a million times before.”

“What’s this?” Riddle asked, holding up the beaded blue chain of Harry’s butterbeer cork necklace and bringing it closer to examine. Some of the cork had gone a bit crumbly around the edges from being handled too much over the years.

“My friend made it for me. I was going to see her soon and she likes it when we wear them together. Drives our other friend batty.”

“You wear this _thing_ in public?”

“It protects us from Nargles,” Harry said. Fondness welled up inside her. Seeing the necklace made the future feel more real. It was physical proof that Harry hadn’t gone crazy, imagined her whole entire life, and then gone wandering the countryside. Though she knew many would argue that wearing a butterbeer cork necklace was a sign of insanity.

“Nargles. Right.” Riddle put it down before carefully examining each of the other items, stealing a biscuit.

The kettle finally whistled behind her and they sat down to a makeshift tea. Harry had never had anything more wonderful. The warmth sunk into her bones. It swallowed up all the bruises and cold floors and ever spiraling stress until all that remained was just the piping hot mug between her fingers.

“So who are you? What are you doing here?”

Of course Riddle would choose now to break the truce. Did she have some sort of built-in alarm system that went off the moment Harry was content? It would explain a lot about future Voldemort.

“I’m not after you for whatever mysterious thing you’ve done. I’m just…lost.”

“You’re just lost,” Riddle deadpanned.

“Very lost.”

Riddle was trying hard to keep her temper in check. She was good, but Harry was better. She had a lifetime of experience at irritating authority figures and those who thought themselves authorities. Riddle’s fingers twitched slightly around her mug. She clearly wanted to reach for her wand, but was stopping herself.

Harry bit her bottom lip. Did she really want to do this?

She knew that she wasn’t about to suddenly discover the secret to time magic on her own. She could find an owl and write Dumbledore, maybe. Could she get him to believe her without sounding even more suspicious and getting herself into more trouble? Highly questionable. There was also the task then of getting back to Britain. If Harry thought she trouble before about the whole soccer stadium thing, it was probably nothing compared to after the breakout.

No, Riddle somehow seemed the safest bet. What a world she was living in.

To have any hope of sending her back though, Riddle needed to know that she was even from the future in the first place. But she didn’t really need to know _when_ exactly Harry was from, did she? The possibility of that far ahead future knowledge could prove too great a temptation to Riddle. And if she knew Harry knew of Voldemort, much less killed her? Both wars would be lost before they even started.

Too soon to 1952 though and there would be all sorts of questions that Harry should know and couldn’t answer.

Well. In for a penny, in for a pound?

“I’m from the future. There was an accident in 1970 and it flung me here,” Harry blurted out.

“Wonderful. I’m shackled to a bloody lunatic.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harry is great at making complicated plans, thank you very much, and she is 100% certain that this web of hastily spun lies will never come back to bite her. Ever. Meanwhile, Riddle is wondering if maybe the better option after all would have been to just suck it up and spend the night in jail.


End file.
